ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Review

Introduction

ASUS was quick to get me their new custom flagship ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition graphics card, with what should be one of the most popular custom RTX 3080 Ti cards in my lab before NDA, I was quick to get it tested and ready for today.

The new custom ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition graphics card is yet another feather in ASUS's cap, a fantastic custom RTX 3080 Ti that kicks ass across the board. We have an incredible aesthetic that ASUS is known for, and a super-tooled cooler that will keep that Ampere GPU on 8nm and the new 12GB of GDDR6X memory as cool as possible.

ASUS goes all out with a triple-fan cooler and huge 2.9-slot design, which is a behemoth against the dual-slot design of NVIDIA's own GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition graphics card. It's the same size as the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3090, and at times more powerful.

• Read more: ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 3090 OC Edition Review
• Read more: ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 OC Edition Review
• Read more: ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3070 OC Edition Review

ASUS also adds in an additional HDMI 2.1 port, so you can enjoy dual HDMI 2.1 outputs if you need 2 x 4K 120/144Hz displays hooked up to it. This is more useful than it seems when you're a power user like me, where I have 2-3 x 4K 120/144Hz monitors. Yeah... 2 to 3 of them on one GPU.

Right now I'm driving the new ASUS ROG Strix XG43UQ which is a 43-inch 4K 144Hz gaming monitor, which is plugged into HDMI 2.1 on the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. Next to that I have the ASUS ROG Strix XG438Q, the previous-gen model of this monitor -- still 4K and 144Hz but it's over DisplayPort 1.4.

A nice little family photo of NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 30 series Founders Edition graphics cards, and my reviews on each of the separate cards.

• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Founders Edition Review
• Read more: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti Founders Edition Review

For the entire time testing the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition graphics card, I was using their new ASUS ROG Strix XG43UQ monitor... a huge 43-inch 4K 144Hz monitor with HDMI 2.1 connectivity. I used HDMI 2.1 directly into every GeForce RTX 3080 Ti that I've tested here today and will continue from this day onward.

Back to the ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition, which adding to its huge 2.9-slot design and triple-fan cooler we have an RGB strip along the top of the card that really adds to the overall feel of the card. I've loved it on other custom ROG Strix graphics cards, and it's right at home here on the ROG Strix RTX 3080 Ti.

Everything You Need to Know About Ampere

• Ampere GPU architecture: NVIDIA has so much going on under the Ampere GPU hood, with the GA102 GPU packing a huge 28 billion transistors (that's 28,000,000,000) on the Samsung 8nm node. We have a huge 10240 CUDA cores on GA102, over double the 4608 CUDA cores on the TITAN RTX.
• RTX improvements: NVIDIA has effectively doubled everything when it comes to RTX, where it will rips and tears your games and delivers them to your eyeballs faster than ever before with Ampere. If you want to run any RTX-powered games, you'll want a new GeForce RTX 3080.
• GDDR6X memory: The new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has 12GB of GDDR6X memory on a 384-bit memory bus, with a massive 912GB/sec of memory bandwidth. You should see the 4K gaming results for the evidence of the Ampere GPU + GDDR6X memory slaying it.

• PCIe 4.0 connectivity: NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 30 series graphics cards are now PCIe 4.0 compatible, so if you're building a new AMD Ryzen 3000 series system with an X570 motherboard -- you will be ready to rock and roll with PCIe 4.0 connectivity.
• HDMI 2.1: 4K 120Hz + 8K 60Hz = single cable: If you are buying a new TV in the coming months or years, HDMI 2.1 is going to be something you want. It opens up the bandwidth floodgates to 4K 120Hz and 8K 60Hz over the single HDMI 2.1 cable.
• RTX IO: NVIDIA's introduction of RTX IO with Ampere is very similar to the ultra-fast game load times on the next-gen Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 consoles. You can read all about RTX IO right here, which is something we'll see build more foundation in 2021 and beyond.

RTX 3080 Ti Tech Specs

NVIDIA has up to 1.5x more performance at 4K with the new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti over the previous-gen Turing-based GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, which can lead to a gigantic improvement in frame rate in the latest games at the glorious 4K resolution on the RTX 3080 Ti.

If we do a direct comparison between the new Ampere-based GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and the previous-gen Turing-based GeForce RTX 2080 Ti there are some stark differences. The new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has 10240 CUDA cores up from the 4352 CUDA cores on the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

The new GeForce RTX 3080 Ti has 80 SMs, 320 Tensor Cores (3rd Gen) and 80 RT Cores (2nd Gen) versus the 68 SMs, 544 Tensor Cores (2nd Gen) and 68 SMs (1st Gen). There's 320 Texture Units and 112 ROPs on the RTX 3080 Ti, versus the 272 Texture Units and 88 ROPs on the RTX 2080 Ti.

GPU boost clocks are around the same on both the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and GeForce RTX 2080 Ti in Founders Edition form, while the new RTX 3080 Ti packs 12GB of GDDR6X against the 11GB of GDDR6 found on the RTX 2080 Ti.

GDDR6X provides a huge injection of performance, key to 4K gaming dominance -- with the 12GB of GDDR6X placed on a 384-bit memory bus providing a huge 912GB/sec of memory bandwidth. NVIDIA used 11GB of GDDR6 (non-X) on the RTX 2080 Ti on a slightly smaller 352-bit memory bus, which spits out 616GB/sec of memory bandwidth.

Detailed Look

As usual, ASUS has great retail packaging for its ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition graphics card. If there's ever one of these unicorns on a shelf, it'll look good for the 0.00001 seconds that it thought about being on the shelf.

ASUS uses its ROG Strix design that is identical across its card, so you wouldn't even know the difference between this (the RTX 3080 Ti) and the RTX 3080 version of the card if you didn't check the sticker on the card physically. I'm a big fan of the ROG Strix aesthetic.

I do wish they'd have a full-cover backplate that truly covered the card, or a shorter and fatter full 3-slot card versus the 2.9-slot design. Still, the backplate looks great and there's no RGB lighting back here at all.

ASUS does change up the display connectivity from NVIDIA's own GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition, adding an additional HDMI 2.1 port to the back of the ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. This means you can have 2 x 4K 120/144Hz monitors or TVs hooked up to the card at once, on top of the DisplayPort 1.4 connectors.

The 2.9-slot design is pretty thick on the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition compared to the 2-slot design on NVIDIA's in-house GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition. But, you do have a much better cooler that will keep your GPU + GDDR6X memory cooler than the FE card.

You will however need triple 8-pin PCIe power connectors, up from the dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors on the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition -- which uses its new 12-pin to dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors (adapter included in the box).

The RGB light strip on top of the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition graphics card.

Test System Specs

Latest upgrade:

ASUS provided a rather large upgrade to my GPU testing lab -- or rather, I kept the ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ gaming monitor after my review on it. The 43-inch 4K 144Hz panel is just glorious to look at -- it's huge, the DPI for Windows 10 when set perfect for your viewing distance is kiss-fingers-emoji good. It's just amazing -- for work, and gaming.

Sabrent sent over their huge Rocket Q 8TB NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD, which will be my new Games install SSD inside of my main test bed.

I'll be making some changes over the coming months to the GPU test bed here for TweakTown, to both the Ryzen 9 5900X and then Intel's new Core i9-11900K to do some proper PCIe 4.0 testing between the chipsets for GPUs + super-fast load times into games on these new super-fast Sabrent SSDs.

Sabrent helped out with some new storage for my GPU test beds, sending over a slew of crazy-fast Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSDs. I've got this installed into my GPU test bed as the new Games Storage drive, since games are so damn big now. Thanks to Sabrent, I've got 2TB of super-fast M.2 PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD storage now.

Anthony's GPU Test System Specifications

I've recently upgraded my GPU test bed -- at least for now, until AMD's new Ryzen 9 5950X processor is unleashed then the final update for 2020 will happen and we'll be all good for RDNA 2 and future Ampere GPU releases. You can read my article here: TweakTown GPU Test Bed Upgrade for 2021, But Then Zen 3 Was Announced.

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3800X (buy from Amazon)
• Motherboard: ASUS ROG X570 Crosshair VIII HERO (buy from Amazon)
• Cooler: CoolerMaster MasterLiquid ML360R RGB (buy from Amazon)
• RAM: G.SKILL Trident Z NEO RGB 32GB (4x8GB) (F4-3600C18Q-32GTZN) (buy from Amazon)
• SSD: Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 (buy from Amazon)
• PSU: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 11 1200W (buy from Amazon)
• Case: InWin X-Frame 2.0
• OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Professional x64 (buy from Amazon)
• Monitor: ASUS ROG Swift PG43UQ (buy from Amazon)

Benchmarks - Synthetic

3DMark Fire Strike

3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

3DMark TimeSpy

Heaven - 1080p

Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing.

Benchmarks - 1080p

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

1080p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

You've got the same performance that NVIDIA offers with its GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition with the custom ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition. I wouldn't recommend buying any RTX 3080 Ti for 1080p gaming unless you wanted to push 240FPS+ or something crazy.

Benchmarks - 1440p

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

1440p Benchmark Performance Thoughts

If you had a 2560 x 1440 monitor with 120/144/165Hz refresh rate, then the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti (and any RTX 3080 Ti for that matter) is a great choice. 1440p at high refresh rates warrants a high-end GPU like the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti.

You'll get enjoying 60FPS+ in AAA titles and 120FPS+ in esports and multiplayer titles on the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti without a problem.

Benchmarks - 4K

Assassin's Creed: Valhalla is the latest game to be inserted into our benchmark suite, with Ubisoft Montreal using its AnvilNext engine to power the game. It scales really well across the cards, and has some surprising performance benefits with AMD's new Big Navi GPUs.

You can buy Assassins Creed: Valhalla at Amazon.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

Metro Exodus is one of the hardest tests that our graphics cards have to go through, with 4A Games' latest creation being one of the best looking games on the market. It is a serious test that pushes GPUs to their limits, and also features RTX technologies like DLSS.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

4K Benchmark Performance Thoughts

We know this is what we're here for -- 4K gaming on the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition graphics card. It handles it without a problem as the RTX 3080 Ti is a 4K gaming powerhouse as it is, ASUS just keeps the GPU cooler and makes it look ROG Strix-y.

Overclocking

Out of the box the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition was sitting comfortably at around 1830MHz GPU boost clock, up against the 1890MHz GPU boost out of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition.

I was able to push my sample of the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition graphics card to around 2130MHz boost GPU clock, while being able to drive 1000MHz+ more into the GDDR6X to push it to 21Gbps and have over 1TB/sec of memory bandwidth.

As you can see from an absolute pounding of benchmarking, the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti holds its own with its 2.9-slot design and triple-fan cooler. We have GPU temps of around 62C under load, with the fans cranked to 100% of course during all testing.

The GPU hotspot was at around 73C while the 12GB of GDDR6X memory was running at around 68C, the fans spinning at 2800-3000RPM while the card consumed 400W on the dot when overclocked. The GPU itself is drawing 210W here.

Power Consumption & Temps

Out of the box, the custom ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition is running at around 70C during gaming and benchmarking loads. The GPU is at around 67-69C, GPU hotspot sits at around 80-82C, and the 12GB of GDDR6X memory at around 75-77C.

This is a much better result in terms of cooling when it comes to the GDDR6X memory, as NVIDIA's own GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition has its 12GB of GDDR6X memory running at around 92-94C (compared to ASUS and the ROG Strix RTX 3080 Ti with its GDDR6X running at 76C).

NVIDIA's new Ampere GPUs are power-hungry at the top end of the scale, with the custom ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition rocking triple 8-pin PCIe power connectors and a higher power limit than the RTX 3080 Ti FE -- it can be pushed a little further.

Even at its peak, we're talking 510W full system power consumption with the ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 Ti using 400W+ on its own when overclocked.

What's Hot, What's Not

What's Hot

• One of the fastest RTX 3080 Ti cards: NVIDIA already has enough performance in its "stock" form with the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti Founders Edition and ASUS only gives you more. You're going to get everything the RTX 3080 Ti FE gives you, sometimes the same, and sometimes more performance with the ASUS ROG Strix RTX 3080 Ti.
• ROG Strix style: You can't turn away from the card, it looks fantastic in any gaming system. You'll want to couple it with a ROG Strix motherboard of course, for the ultimate in all things ROG.
• Overclocking potential: Your results will vary, but there's a good amount of wiggle room with the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. I was able to reach 2130MHz GPU boost stable, with the fans at 100% the GPU was clocking in at 62C. I'll include some OC results in this review in the next 24-48 hours.

What's Not

• 400W+ power consumption: If you're using the card during winter, at least it'll keep you warm. ASUS isn't alone with the 400W power consumption so this isn't something exclusive to the ROG Strix custom variant, but rather the RTX 30 series are just power-hungry and the flagship GPUs even more so.

Final Thoughts

Come on... we both knew that this was going to be a review where it's positive -- ASUS can't really fail with a new high-end GeForce RTX 3080 Ti graphics card when it throws it into the ROG Strix mixer. You're going to get a card that is well-equipped to stay cool, has that ROG Strix aesthetic, and drives all of your games to the max.

The new ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition graphics card will offer you 4K 120FPS gaming in titles that use DLSS -- Call of Duty: Warzone for example, I was running at 4K 120FPS+ average with DLSS set to Quality and everything else virtually maxed out. It's an amazing experience, something that you can't quite do on the RTX 3080, and don't want to spend that ridiculous amount of money on the RTX 3090 for.

NVIDIA just announced that a bunch more games will be getting RTX ray tracing and DLSS upgrades soon, where during its virtual Computex 2021 keynote the company announced that huge games like DOOM Eternal, Red Dead Redemption 2, and Rainbow Six: Siege would be getting RTX and DLSS technologies (some both, some just DLSS).

• Read more: DOOM Eternal receives ray tracing + NVIDIA DLSS update in June
• Read more: Red Dead Redemption 2 to get NVIDIA DLSS tech update soon
• Read more: Rainbow Six: Siege joins the NVIDIA DLSS train, update coming soon

NVIDIA fills that spot with the GeForce RTX 3080 Ti and ASUS solidifies it with yet another formidable member of its ROG Strix GPU family. If you can find the new ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 3080 Ti OC Edition graphics card in your market -- and you're fine with whatever price is on the sticker, then you will not regret it.

Pick yourself up a new monitor while you're at it, it would be a waste to be gaming at 1080p or even 1440p on a GeForce RTX 3080 Ti. ASUS has its new ROG Strix XG43UQ, a large 43-inch 4K 144Hz gaming monitor with HDMI 2.1 connectivity.